Wollongong is the third largest city in the state of N.S.W, after Sydney and Newcastle. The name Wollongong in the local AboriginesAboriginal language means `sound'sound of the sea`sea'. The town hastown's a history ofis strongly associated with coal mining, the steel industry and hasthere is an industrial port. ItWollongong is also the regional centre for the South Coast fishing industry. John Beasley alsoeven built his own 30`30' steel yacht. He was an experienced yachtsman, who sailed hundreds of miles single-handedsingle-handedly and participated in two Sydney-Hobart yacht races. The dim light of the rising sun was enough for us to see the channel markers and slowlythe slow motor coming out with the ebb tide towards the southern part of Port Hacking, facing the mighty Pacific Ocean swell. ‘Hardly any wind and yet the waves are so big! Why is that?’, Connie asked John as the yacht startstarted to roll sideways and so the never endingnever-ending of the rocking motion started to affect us all, except my friend on the helm. ‘Can we hoist the mainsail up itup? It may improve conditions?’conditions!’, I asked the skipper. ‘Not really Joe! asAs you can see there is no wind, so with these conditions it helps nonedoesn't help and, besidesif anything, you can easyeasily damage your mainsail, by. By the way, these are not waves, these arethis is the southeast swell that areand it is common along the east coast of Australia. Soon I too began